The doors of God they have locked with keys of
creed
And shut out by the Law his tireless Grace.
(Savitri, p. 225)
Religion,
Western and Indian
My
objective here is not an exhaustive study of the different religions of the
world. I have neither the scope nor the ability for such an enterprise.
However, in order to bring out some of the major differences in the religious
thinking of the world we can study the monotheistic Christianity as it has
developed in the West and the Indian religious culture which it is quite
difficult if not impossible to enclose in a clear-cut theistic structure.
These
two views of religion, sometimes almost diametrically opposite, will show us,
if we study them objectively and dispassionately, the various elements and
forms religion can assume.
If
we accept the definition of religion given in
The
Western religious mentality is most baffled by what it calls Hinduism. There is
more formal unity in the other Indian religions that have a recognized founder,
a teaching that is more or less canonical. But even the fixed and systematized
elements are not as fixed and rigid as in the monotheistic religions. Buddhism,
for example, in its earlier stage was nothing more than one of the many
explorations for the salvation of man at a time when there was an intense seeking
in many directions. It was certainly not even a spiritual movement: Buddha has
always evaded the question of the Spirit, the Self or the soul. Only later when
Buddha himself was deified did Buddhism become a religion with well-defined
religious elements, like the threefold credo (trisāraņa)—I take refuge in Buddha, I take refuge in the law (dharma) I take refuge in the community
(samgha). The Western mentality finds
it easier to understand a religious prospect based on fixed credos, fixed
rituals and techniques of meditation and a fixed religious head.
Hinduism
is quite baffling. It “admits all beliefs, allowing even a kind of
high-reaching atheism and agnosticism and permits all possible spiritual
experiences, all kinds of religious adventures”. [2] Within this complete
system (or rather lack of system) the thing that was fixed, and that was often
taken to define it, is not at all a religio-spiritual but a social law. Today
even that rigid social caste structure is rejected by the liberal secularist
democratic idea, and undermined by the growing intellectualism and
freethinking. Moreover, the spiritual movements of
Religion
in the West hardly admits the free seeking of the aspiring human mind. Instead
of the freedom of the spirit what matters most is the dogma, the theological
credo. To attain salvation the adherent has inevitably to pass through Christ
and his church. This idea of dependence is the premise on which the intellect
builds the theological argument. Even theologians who are considered innovators
and revolutionary, who endeavour to give, through modern hermeneutics, new and
universal meaning to religious beliefs and who discard the medieval
obscurantist and cruel religious practices, are not free of this basic
dependence. To those who think that they can know truth by themselves and can
be virtuous and spiritual by their own effort and can be redeemed through
personal discipline, Paul, the real founder of the Christian theology and dogma,
has said that Christ is “our wisdom, our righteousness and sanctification and
redemption”. And it is concluded that “the view that we can and should gain the
basis and meaning of our existence by our own power is not simply an error that
might be corrected by enlightenment, but rather is nothing other than sin.” [3]
The
wage of sin is eternal damnation.
What
is sin?
“To
forget that we are creatures—yes, even to misuse the idea of creation by saying
that God is in us, that we sense on ourselves divine and creative forces, and
by undertaking such forces to shape our lives to build the world. And this sin,
this forgetting of his own nothingness, is precisely what really delivers man
to nothingness, to death.” [4]
Man
is reduced to ‘nothingness’, he is divested of his human dignity, his existence
even, for if he is nothing he cannot really exist. This view is at the antipode
of the Indian idea that man, even though ignorant and imperfect, is not
nothing; he is a part of the divine universal becoming and bears in him the
divine unborn eternal part, ajo bhāgah.
He is essentially divine and he can sense in himself the divine creative force
which through sincere work can shape his life and the world. Such idea and
undertaking endows man with greatness and divine dignity. Indian thought,
moreover, does not recognize sin but ‘error’ that can be corrected by enlightenment. In fact, sin as understood in
the West is an unknown concept in
The
concept of man in Christian belief, not only in the popular but in the highest
theological and doctrinal literature, is that man is an ephemeral creature, “a
soul manufactured at birth by an arbitrary breath of the whimsical Creator”.
[5] It is said in the Bible that “the Lord formed man of the dust of the
ground, and breathed into his nostrils a breath of life; and man became a
living soul.” [6] The breath of life however is not an immortal part of God—the
soul is immortal—but it is not of the God-substance and its destiny is not
necessarily eternal blessedness; it can be condemned to eternal damnation.
The
idea of man in
From
the above discussion we can conclude that there is a vast difference in the
perception, experience and practice of religious life in
The
At
first reading this seems to be a liberal view, but if we read more carefully
some interesting conclusions arise. The perception of these peoples is a certain
perception, implying that the perception is not wholly true, that it is vague
and imprecise. Again when he says that there is in them “the recognition of a
Supreme Being or even of a Father”, it is implied that only God the Father, as
in the monotheistic religions, is the truth. Other conceptions of the Supreme
are inevitably partial, if not false.
Paul
VI continues saying that religions which are ‘bound up’ with ‘an advanced
culture’ have ‘struggled’ to answer the same questions, again implying that
they have not found the true answer. “Thus, in Hinduism, men contemplate the
divine mystery and express it through an abundance of myths and through searching
philosophical enquiry.” But Christ, in the Christian dogma is historical: he
was born of a virgin (historically and biologically true), and he was crucified—offered
himself for the redemption of men and women who all are born sinners, then he
resurrected and bodily ascended to heaven. Myths are at best allegorical; they
do not express in unequivocal language the divine mystery. And finally the
‘philosophical enquiry’! This too is suspect. Philosophy means intellectual
search of truth. In
Finally,
he concludes that the Hindus “seek freedom from the anguish of our human
condition either through ascetical practices or profound meditation or a flight
to God with love and trust”. We seem to hear in undertone that although this
may seem impressive it is not the way of redemption, for the redemption can
come only through Christ, his church and the grace. All the efforts to ‘seek’
through asceticism (tapas, yoga),
meditation (dhyāna), or love and
trust (bhakti) do not make them find.
Their seeking is vain.
Other
religions try, each in its own manner, to solve the existential problem “by proposing (italics mine) ‘ways’,
comprising teachings, rules of life and sacred rites”. And the Pope adds that
the Roman Catholic Church rejects nothing that is true and holy in these
religions. “The Church regards with sincere reverence those ways of conduct and
of life, those precepts and teachings which, though differing in many aspects
from the ones she holds and sets forth, nonetheless often reflect a ray of that
Truth which enlightens all men”—the Sun of Truth is the Catholic doctrine and
the truths proclaimed by others are at best a reflection of its ray, not even
of the whole of itself. And what is that only-true Catholic doctrine? “Indeed,
she (the Church) proclaims, and ever must proclaim Christ ‘the way, the truth,
and the life,’ [9] in whom men may find the fullness of religious life, in whom
God has reconciled all things to Himself.”
The
dialogue with non-Christians proposed by the Church is finally for preparing it
to undertake the mission of converting those who follow other religions or
think otherwise. A French Indologist, staunch believer in Christian faith, says
that it would be ‘deceitful of us’ if the dialogue “did not involve the explicit
acknowledgment of the duty that every Christian has to bear witness and
proclaim the transcendence of Christianity.” [10] In fact it is recognised that
dialogue prepares mission. “For every Christian, the missionary duty is the
normal expression of his lived faith.” [11] The Vatican II Council enjoins the
Christians “to learn from sincere and patient dialogue what treasures a
bountiful God has distributed among the nations of the earth.” But what is the
outcome of the dialogue and what conclusions Christians should draw from it?
The document continues: “At the same time let them try to illuminate with the
light of the Gospel, to set them free, and bring them under the dominion of God
their Saviour.”
The
import is clear: non-Christians don’t see or know the value of the treasures,
they are bound by ignorance and only the Gospel can bring them illumination to
appreciate the treasures at their just value, become free by that teaching from
blindness, superstition, idolatry and polytheism and accept the true Christian
God as the Saviour.
This
arrogant attitude of the believers of the one true religion is clearly
expressed by our above-mentioned Indologist in the article L’élan spirituel de l’hindouisme (The Spiritual Impulse in Hinduism). He ends the article with the
following words: “Let us beg God that India may belong to Christ; let us beg
Him also that her visible entry in the Church does not have to take place after
some cataclysm which would first destroy what is the purest and deepest in her
Indianness.” [12] When twenty years ago I first read these lines I made some
marginal comments: “It is hard to understand how a thinking person can thus be
blinded by religious faith. Let us rather ask God that Christians open their
eyes and see that Christ is only one ‘son of God’ among many who have taken
birth before and after him. He is not the sole bearer of truth: God is more
than what Christ and his church have taught. He is not limited either by his
transcendence or by his person. Indian spirituality sets forth an infinite
framework within which Christ’s teaching also has a place. Christians should
recognize humbly that their faith too is just a grain of sand in the infinite
of the Real.”
Not
only the Christian Church, but all the monotheistic religions are fully
convinced that only their own faith is the true one. The religious truth was,
each one thinks, revealed to them fully, once for all. There can be no going
beyond and no evolution. What appears to the free spiritual experience as a
partial and often distorted expression of the divine truth is taken as the
definitive revelation. There may be some modification, some new interpretation,
some reformation, but most often they lead to a new schism. And every separate
sect takes more or less the same attitude as the Catholic Church. All
monotheistic sects have cherished their own dogmas, cults, ceremonies and
ethical injunctions as the final expression possible of the only true religion
which should be imposed upon the entire mankind by persuasion, propaganda,
missionary activity and even military force and economic pressure.
In
the evolutionary philosophy of the Realistic Adwaita static religious view of
credal theology cannot be of any constructive help. We have to look for a more
subtle, creative, inventive and innovative form of religious living on which a
higher and truly free spiritual living can be established. The Indian religious
vision can be the spring-board for such an enterprise. There is in that vision “a
union of unlimited religious liberty with an always orderly religious evolution
... It is this absolute freedom of thought and experience and this provision of
a framework sufficiently flexible and various to ensure liberty and yet
sufficiently sure and firm to be the means of a stable and powerful
evolution...” [13]
[1] The Foundations of Indian
Culture (Vol.14), p. 122
[2] Ibid.,
p. 123
[3]Rudolf Bultmann, Existence and
Faith, Cleveland and New York, 1965, p 180
[4] Ibid,
p. 180
[5] The Foundations
of Indian Culture, p. 98
[6] Genesis
2:7
[7] The
Foundations of Indian Culture, p. 98
[8] Ibid., p.
133
[9] John 14:6
[10] Olivier Lacombe, L’élan spirituel
de l’hindouisme, Paris, 1986, p. 146
[11]‘The Attitude of the Church
towards the Followers of Other Religions: Reflections and Orientations on
Dialogue and Mission’. Secretariat for the Non-Christians, May 10, 1984
[12] Olivier Lacombe, op.cit.
p. 25
[13]The Foundations of Indian
Culture, p. 132